Looking back down on Horton Lakes from one of the switchbacks. We're camped in the middle of this photo, basically.

Looking over at Basin, yesterday's climb. The summit is the high point just to the left of center and you can see the valley we followed up.

At the top of the switchbacks, around 11,700 ft. The summit of tom is 13.6k, so we have around 2000 ft of climbing left. Camp was at 9900 so we've already climbed 1800.

On the plateau/hanging valley

Pavla at the 'pass'

There is a whole network of old mining roads up here. We'll follow the main one over to the old Tungstar Mine.

The road is in great condition up here.

Ruins of the Hanging Valley Mine

Mt Tom. It looks a bit imposing and big from here.

Hanging Valley Mine ruins.

Along the road, Four Gables in the distance.

Mt Morgan

We come around a curve and see the ruins and diggings from the Tungstar Mine. Also, some steep chutes.

We can finally see down into Pine Creek and the Tungsten Mill that still operates (?) down there.

Inside one of the tunnels. The ore cart is now just holding snow.

There are two Ingersoll Rand engines up here, one 4-cyl and one 6-cyl, I believe, along with old fuel tanks. They must have run the tramway?

Mining junk

Time to leave the nice road/trail and start up the steep, loose, sloggy chute towards the top.

Good thing we had these views to keep up our spirits, because the terrain was awful.

Bear Creek Spire in the center.

It was steep. We can see the Pine Creek Tungsten Mill now.

Taking a break. The Tungstar Mine where we left road is below us by that patch of white. We've been following steep use trails up the chute.

We cross a couple of ribs and other chutes, trying to find the best terrain.

Occasionally we find some solid rock and it's a relief to be off of loose stuff for a few steps.

We were in what I call 'four wheel drive' on a lot of this climb - using both feet and both hands to scramble through the rocks.

This was one of our visual landmarks through the climb. Kept it on our left on the way up and on our right on the way down. This was the last (third) chute we entered. The track went like this: chute from the mine, cross a rib, cross another chute, cross another rib, and then end up in the chute with this rock on the left.

Looking back down on the hanging valley and the peaks in the distance.

We had one problem as we climbed - we weren't sure which pile of rocks was the actual summit. We followed a use trail to this nice break spot on the ridge and realized we were really close - only about 200 ft below the summit. So we left our packs and scrambled up to the piles to try and find the real summit.

Pavla approaching the ridge.

Robin and David scrambling along the ridge.

Hm. Which one is it? There are about four piles that all look to be similar in height.

I started towards the reddish one in the middle, but as I approached it I realized the pile on its right was higher, so headed that way.

On the highest pile - nothing looks higher. I really hope I'll find a benchmark or register up there.

A benchmark! Woo hoo! We're on the right pile! Check out the hanging valley 2000 ft below - it's taken us two hours to scramble up here from there.

On the summit of Mt Tom. I'm SO HAPPY to finally be here!

Looking down on Horton Lake (camp) and across at yesterday's peak, Basin Mountain.